Yellow takes to the woods

As the Oregon woods, the Dakota plains, the Michigan forests and the Carolina hills echo to the boom of guns this season, they will also be aglow with gunners in raiment brighter than a harvest moon. For this is the year that yellow takes to the woods—on the backs of those who prefer not to be taken for deer or other quarry by shoot-then-think hunters. Yellow has been coming for three years, ever since tests started by two California optometrists and further carried out by National Rifle Association and U.S. Army experts proved that yellow is by far the most visible color in the spectrum. The long-favored red, it was found, under many conditions is scarcely distinguishable from evergreen even by the normally visioned. Since this is the first season that yellow hunting clothes are available in most stores, red is still going strong, particularly in conservative New England—after all, grandpop wore it and didn't get shot. But last week yellow hats and vests for upland shooting were outselling red at St. Paul's Gokey Co.; in Boise, where perhaps men know the dangers of being mistaken for a hunk of venison best, it's yellow two to one.